


you have me back against the wall

by Wanderingchronicle



Series: no choir [6]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Discussed Trauma, First Dates, M/M, Mollymauk lives, Pining, Post Resurrection, Relationship Discussions, Talking about your feelings, Tarot Readings, confessions of a sort, hand holding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 03:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17113478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wanderingchronicle/pseuds/Wanderingchronicle
Summary: Things come to a head.--Molly opens his mouth, then closes it and swallows. “I don’t know how to give you the answer you want,” he manages, and it comes out sounding far too raw for his liking.Nott gives him a withering look. “Then don’t,” she replies, “just give me the truth.”





	you have me back against the wall

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the long wait! It's here, the penultimate no choir fic, posted before my busy busy work shift! MERRY CHRISTMAS!
> 
> Apologies for any mistakes, I'll come through and correct them shortly :D

_ But I can't beat ya, 'cause I'm still with ya _

_ "Oh mercy", I implore _

_ How do you do it? I think I'm through it _

_ Then I'm back against the wall _

_ \--florence and the machine, “what kind of man” _

 

_ \-- _

 

Molly awakens to find the world outside his window is unceasingly grey, and the light patter of raindrops from the night before has evolved into a raging storm. The round scar over his chest twinges faintly, as it always does when it gets cold.

The other bed in the room is empty, sheets rumpled. The rest of the Nein must be downstairs, he thinks, pulling his shirt over his head and lacing up his boots. He’d slept in all his jewellery, a testament to how exhausted he had been the night before.

He swings his coat around his shoulders last, sighing as the warm fabric envelopes him. It’s no replacement for the coat he lost when he died, but it’s better suited to the weather north and a different sort of ostentatious, the kind that’s a lot more like a robe with a big furry hood.

Thus attired, Mollymauk exits his rooms and heads downstairs. The inn they managed to find to shelter from the weather while they recovered from their latest adventure was reasonably comfortable, a fire roaring merrily in a corner and a friendly half-Elf manning the bar, whistling as she cleans out tankards.

Much to his consternation, he does not find the Nein. Instead, he finds Caleb and the remnants of everyone else’s breakfast, along with a platter of food he earnestly hopes is meant to be for him.

Caleb looks up from his book as Mollymauk takes a seat, pushing the plate towards him with one finger. “Jester is upstairs tending to Nott and Fjord’s injuries,” he says, “and Beau volunteered to trade some of the items we relieved our attackers of for more coin.”

It’s a very utilitarian sentence, the same as all the other times Caleb has addressed him in the last six weeks. He had hoped, despite himself, that something would change, that the warm press of Caleb’s mouth in the dark would be the start of something.

But the next morning, and all mornings after, Caleb has expressed no interest in pursuing what happened between them in the slightest. And this is the first time they’ve been alone, and Molly wants to ask if he somehow misconstrued, if Caleb kissing him and pulling him closer was something he did because Molly wanted it and he felt obliged, or if he’d wanted it too.

He wants to ask, but he came out of the grave less bright and less brave than before, so instead he says “How’s your nose?”

Caleb shrugs. “It has been broken before,” he replies, “it will be broken again.”

Jester’s healing, skilled as she is, can only compensate for someone’s nose being smashed flat so well. Caleb’s nose is a slightly different shape from where it was the previous morning, and he still has a rather spectacular black eye. Something in Molly’s chest goes soft looking at him, and he resolves to ignore it and attack his plate of food.

It’s good food -- bread and cheese and some sort of smoked sausage. While he’s eating, the door slams open and the wind blows Beau in the door, drenched to the skin and with chattering teeth.

She gives both Molly and Caleb a curt nod as she heads for the stairs, presumably in order to warm up. Caleb wiggles his fingers at her in a silent greeting, then goes back to his book. Molly eyes the rain lashing the windows, and wonders if he should risk going outside even if it’s simply to escape the quiet little inn.

There’s no other patrons for him to bother, outside looks unappealing, and woe betide him if he distracts Jester while she tends to their injured teammates. Eventually, he retreats upstairs to the room he shares with Fjord, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching the rain lash at the window.

He’s grateful to be alive, but he can’t help but feel left behind. The rest of the Nein have got stronger without him, got closer, and meanwhile Molly wakes up in the cold ground for a second time feeling like something rotted away inside the damp earth, something he’s never going to get back.

His friends are brighter, stronger than they once were. Caleb is mostly clean, more confident than Molly remembers him. He just feels smaller, quieter, less brave.

A loud thunk sounds from downstairs, presumably another traveller entering the inn. Moments later, he hears heavy footsteps and then his door is flung open, revealing Yasha standing in the doorway, wide-eyed.

“Molly,” she says, crossing the room and scooping him off the bed into a wet but heartfelt hug, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder.

He pats her on her broad back, feet dangling uselessly several inches off the floor. “I’m still here,” he says, trying valiantly to ignore the quaver in his voice. Yasha sighs, sitting down on the edge of the bed with Molly still clutched in her arms.

“If you were gone--” she starts fiercely, and he hugs her more tightly, face tucked into her wild snarls of dark hair. It’s all he can do, hold her as tightly as he can and hope she gets the message.

Yasha lets out a great, shuddering sigh, her grip on him relaxing just enough for him to pull away and plant a kiss on her forehead. It’s perversely reassuring to know that he’s not alone in still living with the ramifications of nine months under the ground.

He loves Yasha for her willingness to ask no questions, to simply accept that things have changed. The rest of the Nein have their routine, and every time she comes back she’s missed something. She doesn’t assume that everything remains the same, that she can pick up where she left off.

The two of them end up stretched out in the narrow bed, legs tangled together. It’s the middle of the day, not that anyone can tell, but Molly sleeps fitfully anyway, safely encircled in Yasha’s arms.

When he wakes up Yasha is sitting up, and he knows she has to go again. “I’ll be here when you come back,” he says, and he tries to sound like he believes it.

Yasha stays to eat with the Nein, and for the first time in forever they’re all sitting around a table with hot food and a roaring fire. Caleb smiles indulgently at Nott as she steals food off his plate, Jester is her usual cheeky self, and Fjord manages to make it downstairs despite his shattered shin. They might not get to be together like this for a while, and Molly savours it.

Jester produces a pack of cards, and deals Nott and Beau into a card game that Molly is fairly sure Jester has invented and is also cheating outrageously at. Yasha slips out while the game is going, back out into the storm.

Molly doesn’t realise that he is zoning out until Caleb leans in, his breath warm on Molly’s cheek. “You are being very quiet,” Caleb murmurs, “are you well?”

_ I’m terrible actually _ and  _ I don’t know how I fit in here anymore _ and  _ what do you want from me _ all die in Molly’s throat. Instead he forces a bright shiny smile that he hopes isn’t as brittle as he feels, and says “I’m just going mad cooped up in this weather. If I try to go for a walk, you have my permission to knock me unconscious.”

“You seem very confident I would be able to do that,” Caleb replies dubiously. Having him this close is excruciating, but it’s worse when Caleb settles back in his chair, maintaining a polite distance. Molly wants to scream a little, but that would destroy the warm familiarity in Caleb’s voice, interrupt the card game going on across the table and dispel the magic settling over his shoulders like a cloak.

Caleb seems unbothered by his sudden silence, taking a sip out of his mug of ale and watching the girls squabble over their cards.

“Go fish!” Jester says cheerfully, despite the fact that the game they’re playing has borne no resemblance to Go Fish up until this point. Molly orders another round of drinks and lets himself be dealt into the next game, pasting a lazy grin on his face and trying valiantly to ignore feeling Caleb’s eyes on the back of his head.

Jester swindles him out of a paltry amount of silver, and he lets it happen despite knowing full well that she’s cheating. It makes her smile, and it’s the sort of thing he would have done before, and the silver will likely go towards the group anyway.

He heads upstairs to find Fjord already asleep, out cold in the second bed. He slept most of the day away with Yasha, but he climbs into bed anyway and listens to the rain drum against the windows.

When he wakes up, the second bed is empty and Nott is sitting on his chest.

“Listen,” she says crossly, “if you and my boy don’t come to some sort of understanding, Jester is going to figure out what’s going on and find a way to make you, and I think everyone would prefer it if she didn’t. Do you understand?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Molly croaks, trying to sit up. It’s no use -- Nott has sat herself down in such a way that he’s pinned to the bed, and he’s barely awake as it is.

Nott scoffs, leaning forward to jab Molly in the nose. “Do you really think I didn’t see you two all those weeks ago? I can see in the dark, Mollymauk, really.”

Oh. Molly swallows, tries to find the words, finds nothing at all. Nott sits back, folding her arms. “That’s what I thought,” she says smugly, “and now that we’re done pretending, I need to know what your intentions are for Caleb.”

“I, um,” he says eloquently, “he never brought it up again.”

Nott exhales out through her nose, unfolding her arms to massage at her temples. “Mollymauk,” she sighs, “Caleb does not bring things up, you have to pull any remotely difficult conversation out of him with a set of pliers, ergo waiting for him to talk about it means you will be waiting forever.”

“Also,” she adds after a moment, “you’re dodging the question.”

Molly opens his mouth, then closes it and swallows. “I don’t know how to give you the answer you want,” he manages, and it comes out sounding far too raw for his liking.

Nott gives him a withering look. “Then don’t,” she replies, “just give me the truth.”

He’s never been very good at giving people the truth. “I like Caleb,” is what comes out, and it sounds pathetic. Nott raises an eyebrow, clearly dissatisfied.

“I want -- good things, for him,” he adds haltingly, thinking of the way Caleb’s eyes crinkle at the corners when something amuses him, the way he buries his fingers in Frumpkin’s plush fur, the boyish delight on his face when he casts a new spell.

Nott sneers. “You think you’re a good thing?” she asks, like the idea is something to be delicately picked up and thrown out while you pinch your nose with your off hand.

Molly deflates, because he knows the answer to this one. “No,” he says, “but I very selfishly want to be -- there. I want to be party to good things happening to Caleb. And I want to be close to him, in whatever capacity he’ll have me.”

Nott frowns down at him, but the floodgates are open and he’s not going to stop until he runs out of things to say. “He kissed me first,” he says, a little defensively, “and I hoped that meant something, and I want it to mean something, but we were interrupted and then...well.”

There’s a long, pregnant pause while Nott stares at Molly, a faintly incredulous look on her face. He stares back at her, wheezing slightly from the weight on his chest, feeling distinctly like he’s waiting for judgement.

“This is stupid,” Nott announces, and then she hops off his chest and onto the sill of the open window, clambering out and shutting the window behind her. Molly props himself up on his elbows and stares after her, chewing on his bottom lip.

“What the fuck was that,” he says to the empty room, before sitting all the way up and reaching for his shirt and leggings.

Most of the Nein are already at breakfast, with the exception of Nott. There’s an empty chair between Caleb and Beauregard, and Molly slots himself into it and steals a forkful of eggs from Beauregard’s plate before she can stop him. There’s several large platters of eggs, potato cakes, and sausages in the centre of the table, and after Jester passed him a plate Molly loads it with food and starts to eat.

“Since Molly was still asleep and didn’t hear,” Jester says brightly once his mouth is full of potato cake, “the storm flooded all the roads so we are stuck in this very small town for maybe another day or two days, but it’s not raining too hard so maybe we can go and have a look around, maybe.”

Caleb sighs, folding his arms, “There is no book shop here,” he says dolefully, “and I am fine for components, so I will stay here and re-summon Frumpkin.”

“Yes,” Jester says approvingly, “it would be very nice if you had your cat back, I miss Frumpy. Is anyone going to come with me? I could go all by myself but that would not be as fun as if someone came along.”

Beau and Fjord both express an interest. Molly swallows a mouthful of eggs, then shakes his head. “I think I’ll see if anyone in this tavern would be interested in a round of cards and maybe some gossip,” he says airily, “you never know what goes on in these little towns.”

Jester grins. “Let me know if you learn anything scandalous!” she giggles, before standing up in a swirl of skirts and skipping upstairs. Beau steals a sausage off Molly’s plate and he does absolutely nothing to stop her, instead watching Caleb read something he’s pretty sure is a cruddy adventure novel, taking intermittent pauses to grab more forkfuls of breakfast.

Sometime in the months Molly was gone, Caleb’s hair got long enough to tie up, and there’s a leather thong gathering his hair into a dishevelled knot at the nape of his neck. He raises the fork to his lips and Molly watches his jaw work as he chews and swallows, watches his tongue dart out to catch a crumb of potato stuck to his lip.

Then, just like that, Caleb puts his fork down on his empty plate, gathers his belongings, and retreats upstairs. Molly digs in his pockets for a deck of cards, fingers closing briefly around his tarot deck before he shakes his head and pulls out a battered deck of playing cards. The rest of the Nein begin to drift away as he turns around, winning smile pasted on his face, and asks the two dwarves on the next table over if they’d be interested in a game.

As it turns out, the two dwarf women are just as bored as he is, so they quite happily cycle their way through different games of cards for a few hours as the sun climbs in the sky. Nott appears somewhere around lunchtime and he deals her in without comment until she bows out, collecting an extra plate of lunch from the innkeeper and taking it upstairs.

Molly assumes it’s for Caleb, hard at work re-summoning his cat, and entertains the idea of looking in on him before he dismisses it. Best not to torment himself any more than he needs to, he thinks, setting in for another round of a two-person game the older of the two dwarves calls “snap”.

However, as the afternoon stretches on, the two dwarves excuse themselves and vanish out into the drizzle outside. Molly shuffles his cards back into their battered packet and heads upstairs, picking his tarot cards out of his cloak pocket and running his thumb over the edge of the stack, feeling the wear at the edges of the cards.

As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, he throws his cloak on the edge of the bed and sits on the floor, shuffling and cutting the deck and laying three cards face down on the frayed rug.

Molly stares at those three cards for a very long time, hands on his knees. The cards, he knew, didn’t always say things that were easy to hear. In fact, they rarely did, which was why he seldom did proper readings.

Hesitantly, he reached out and flips over the first card. Seven of Swords. “Secrecy and self interest,” he murmurs thoughtfully, scratching his chin.

The second card makes him wince. Five of Wands. “Lost, lack of direction,” Molly sighs, frowning down at the painted card like it might leap up and start providing answers.

The final card sits invitingly on the rug, and Molly reaches for it and then stops. The third card is the future, and he’d be the first person to say that sometimes it’s easier to lie about the future, rather than drop The Tower or Nine of Swords in front of someone and all they represent.

There’s only so far he can lie to himself, so he reaches for the card once more, squeezes his eyes shut, and flips it over.

Tentatively, he cracks open an eye, then sits up and blinks. “Well I’ll be,” he mutters, picking up the Ace of Swords to examine it more closely.

“Clarity and truth,” Molly adds after a moment, shuffling the cards back into his deck and placing it back in its embroidered bag, and then the bag back in his coat pocket. The future will hold what it holds, he thinks, and some things have to be waited for.

He’s startled from his thoughts by a smart rap on the door, official-sounding. A moment later, a familiar voice sounds from the other side of the door.

“Mollymauk,” Caleb calls out, “are you in there?”

Molly freezes, staring at the door. For a wild moment, he considers pretending that he’s not in, but then he dismisses the idea as ridiculous. What purpose would that serve, running away?

“Yes,” he responds, hastily straightening himself up and raking his hair out of his eyes. He catches himself in the process of smoothing wrinkles out of his leggings and gives himself a mildly aghast look.

There’s a long pause from the other side of the door, long enough for Molly to wonder if Caleb didn’t hear him.

Then, he hears a soft cough, like someone clearing their throat. “Can I come in?” Caleb asks tentatively, as if he expects to be declined.

“I don’t see why not,” Molly replies, because truthfully he can’t. There’s no logical reason for him to suddenly want to escape this situation as quickly as possible, but his palms have begun to sweat and the urge to jump out the window and flee into the drizzling afternoon is growing in intensity.

He wipes his palms on his leggings and pastes a smile on his face as the door cracks open and Frumpkin oozes through the gap in the door, chirping at him in greeting before Caleb himself steps through the door and closes it behind him.

“Mr Mollymauk,” he says, with a faint smile. Frumpkin makes a beeline for Molly’s lap and proceeds to array himself across Molly’s crossed legs, purring.

“How can I help you, Mr Caleb?”

The question hangs in the air for a moment, before Caleb sighs and starts to massage his temples. “Nott spoke to me about something this morning,” he says, and Molly promptly stops breathing, “and I have spent most of the afternoon deliberating what to do about it.”

“Is that so?” Molly says very carefully. Frumpkin fastens his teeth in Molly’s hand gently, and Molly absentmindedly extracts his hand and starts scratching the familiar behind the ears.

Caleb nods, sinking down to sit on the floor across from Molly. “I am sometimes quite good with people,” he says reflectively, “but I think it is safe to say, that I have really fucked it up this time.”

Molly starts, opening his mouth, and Caleb holds a hand up to silence him. “I have,” he says gravely, “and I feel quite terrible about blithely assuming you would understand what I was trying to do.”

This bears no resemblance to anything Mollymauk might have predicted coming out of Caleb Widogast’s mouth. If anything could drive home that Molly had been gone for nearly a year and Caleb had changed in that time, that statement had done it.

“Okay,” Molly frowns, licking his lips nervously, “I don’t understand a thing you just said.”

It comes out a little flippant, and Caleb immediately pins him with a stern look that has his insides doing gymnastics. “I am getting there,” he says severely, “I am just trying to...explain.”

“Take your time.”

This time, his voice comes out gentle, far more tender than he intended. If Caleb notices, he gives no outward sign.

“I thought,” Caleb murmurs, “to give you space. You were very obviously in a vulnerable place, and I didn’t want to take advantage. I was trying to provide...an out, I suppose.”

Molly blinks, cocks his head. “And, you thought I’d taken it.”

“Ja.”

“Oh,” Molly says slowly, “alright then.”

Caleb quirks an eyebrow at him. “I realise now that you might not have realised that was what I was doing. For my part, I was trying to make it easier to pretend it never happened. I didn’t think it likely that you’d want to...continue along those lines, and I thought that if you would...well, you have never really been shy about the things you want.”

He’s made his own bed there, Molly realises, letting people think he always went after the things he wanted.

“You all changed while I was under the ground,” Molly mumbles, “but I changed too. You don’t...die, and come back the same. Now I look at all of you and I see how much stronger you all are, and I know I came back more afraid than I used to be. And I was never really all that brave to start with. The truth is...difficult, and the things that are actually important are just -- scary.”

Molly looks down at his hands, preoccupied stroking Frumpkin’s plush fur. He hears Caleb exhale slowly, a rustle of fabric as he shifts.

“I didn’t mention it again,” he admits, still staring at Frumpkin’s tabby fur, “because I was afraid it was something you did out of pity. I was hurting, and I desperately wanted your attention, and you gave me what you wanted because I’d nearly died and you felt you had to. And the thought that you might have felt obliged…”

“Ah,” Caleb says quietly, “nein, Molly. I did not feel obliged.”

There’s nothing he can really say to that. This was not an outcome he was prepared for. So Molly buries his fingers in the soft fur around Frumpkin’s neck and says nothing.

Caleb, for his part, doesn’t seem bothered by the silence. He looks at Molly with an expression Molly doesn’t know how to read, an barely-perceptible tug at the corners of his mouth.

“So,” Molly blurts out when the quiet has become too much to bear, “I don’t know where this leaves us.”

Caleb snorts, lips curving upwards into an actual smile. “Where do you want it to?” he asks.

The question hangs in the air for a moment. “I’d like the pleasure of your company more often,” Molly says cautiously, “and I think to kiss you again.”

“I would like both of those,” Caleb responds, leaning his chin on his fist, “and perhaps we can work out the particulars as we go?”

“By talking about it,” Molly agrees, “because this particular communication failure is downright embarrassing.”

Caleb laughs, a gorgeous raspy sound that Molly is immediately enchanted with. “Ja,” he smiles, “we will talk about it. Jester found a place that sells a very nice spiced drink and also cookies, perhaps we can do that before dinner?”

That sounds like the most fantastic idea anyone has ever had, and it must show on his face, because Caleb rises to his feet and plucks Frumpkin out of Molly’s lap, depositing the cat across his shoulders and offering his hand to Molly.

Molly can get up by himself, but he takes the proffered hand and lets Caleb help him to his feet. He picks up his cloak from the bed, swirling it around his shoulders, and looks up to find Caleb holding the door open for him, a small smile on his face.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been on a date,” Molly grins as they both head down the corridor to the stairs, “if this is indeed a date.”

Caleb snorts quietly. “It has been more than ten years for me,” he replies, “and I think this is a date too.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” Molly smiles, jumping down the last two stairs and crossing the room with gleeful purpose. He reaches the door and nearly opens it before he realises he has no clue where he’s going, turning to raise an eyebrow at Caleb.

Caleb blinks at him for a long moment before it clicks. “It’s left, and then the third right turn, and then it will be the second building on the right, if Jester’s directions can be trusted.”

Molly laughs, opening the door for Caleb, who rolls his eyes at him before leading the way down the villages’s central thoroughfare.

It’s remarkably pleasant, ambling down rain-slick streets with Caleb. There’s a light drizzle, water pearling on Frumpkin’s long whiskers and in Caleb’s hair. Their shoulders brush, a couple of times, and the casual contact feels comfortable.

“Mister Mollymauk,” Caleb murmurs as they walk past a group of children eating nougat, “may I hold your hand?”

Molly’s heart skips in his chest. His palms are sweating again and he cannot bring himself to care. “Mister Caleb,” he smiles, “I would like nothing more.”

Caleb takes his hand, bony elegant fingers weaving through Molly’s. His hands are warm -- Caleb runs warm, his breath forming clouds in the cool air, and Molly wonders if clambering into bed with him and leeching his body heat might be on the cards sometime in future. It’s not like they haven’t cuddled before, in the tent the night Molly died, but with whatever they seem to have now things might be different.

“You’ve gone quiet,” Caleb remarks, “what are you thinking about?”

For a moment Molly considers making something up, but honesty seems to be the policy of the day and it’s served him well so far. “I was thinking how nice it might be to have someone warm to cuddle on cold nights,” he says, with a guileless smile in Caleb’s direction.

“That would be nice,” Caleb agrees, “perhaps something to put a pin in for another time. This way.”

Molly lets himself be tugged around the corner, inhaling the smell of spices from a small shop coming up on the right. Caleb’s hand is warm in his, and it feels like something is starting between them, and they can work it out as they go.

But for now, he watches Caleb order a cup of something delicious-smelling from the human woman behind the counter, still feeling the residual warmth of Caleb’s hand in his, and he does not think about the future.

Here, now, he is on his first ever date, with the burden of his unspoken desires lifted from his shoulders, and it would be an awful shame to focus in anything other than the brush of Caleb’s fingers as he passes him a ceramic cup and a pastry on a plate and leads them both to a corner table, small enough that their knees knock together under the table.

It’s the start of something, Molly thinks, but he’s not in any rush to do anything other than enjoy it as it comes.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There's one last fic in this series to go -- an epilogue. Thank you all for your support! Enjoy the festive season, everyone!
> 
> As always, come yell at me on tumblr at @wanderingchronicle.


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